ould not go unrewarded.

The sick woman seized the moment of his absence to say in the ear of
Mall Carke:

"If ye had not been at ill work tonight, he could not hev fetched ye.
Tak no more now than your rightful fee, or he'll keep ye here."

At this moment he returned with a bag of gold and silver coins, which
he emptied on the table, and told her to help herself.

She took four shillings, which was her primitive fee, neither more nor
less; and all his urgency could not prevail with her to take a
farthing more. He looked so terrible at her refusal, that she rushed
out of the house.

He ran after her.

"You'll take your money with you," he roared, snatching up the bag,
still half full, and flung it after her.

It lighted on her shoulder; and partly from the blow, partly from
terror, she fell to the ground; and when she came to herself, it was
morning, and she was lying across her own door-stone.

It is said that she never more told fortune or practised spell. And
though all that happened sixty years ago and more, Laura Silver Bell,
wise folk think, is still living, and will so continue till the day of
doom among the fairies.

WICKED CAPTAIN WALSHAWE, OF WAULING

CHAPTER I.

_Peg O'Neill Pays the Captain's Debts_

A very odd thing happened to my uncle, Mr. Watson, of Haddlestone; and
to enable you to understand it, I must begin at the beginning.

In the year 1822, Mr. James Walshawe, more commonly known as Captain
Walshawe, died at the age of eighty-one years. The Captain in his
early days, and so long as health and strength permitted, was a scamp
of the active, intriguing sort; and spent his days and nights in
sowing his wild oats, of which he seemed to have an inexhaustible
stock. The harvest of this tillage was plentifully interspersed with
thorns, nettles, and thistles, which stung the husbandman
unpleasantly, and did not enrich him.

Captain Walshawe was very well known in the neighborhood of Wauling,
and very generally avoided there. A "captain" by courtesy, for he had
never reached that rank in the army list. He had quitted the service
in 1766, at the age of twenty-five; immediately previous to which
period his debts had grown so troublesome, that he was induced to
extricate himself by running away with and marrying an heiress.

Though not so wealthy quite as he had imagined, she proved a very
comfortable investment for what remained of his shattered affections;
and he lived and enjoyed